My take on rock-stone xp removal and plots

General
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I know this is not gonna get a lot of positivity, but please read fully before replying!

And keep it civil as well, I welcome comments, counter-points, constructive criticism, anything really as long as it is done maturely and with thought.

(It’s a sad moment that I have to take time to state the above due to the recent tone of lots of threads in this forum!)

Why are people so upset about a cheap way of gaining xp being removed from the game?

I’m not saying I didn’t use the rock-stone method, I did, but I kind of discovery it by accident.

I thought ‘I have all this spare rock from mining, I see if I process it from rock to stone to refined rock I can gain some xp and put it to use, rather than just sitting on my shelf, or dumping’.

(I ended up giving away all the refined rock for free on shop stands)

So I did use it, but I see this as very different from intentionally mining 100000 rocks specifically just to dump in a machine to gain xp.

I don’t see the process as an ‘exploit’, but some people have exploited the process, you may argue semantics but I think the difference is significant.

Personally, I don’t think the devs should be getting as much hate for this as they seem to be getting, in fact, if anyone is to blame for its removal it’s those people who exploited the method to gain millions of xp in seconds.

This leads on to plots.

Why are people so desperate for more plots?

It’s a genuine question, as I can’t quite get my head around it.

I started at launch on PS4, about 6 months ago (I think), I have 4 chars, 2 of which are well past level 100, one about 70 and the other 37.

Over the 4 chars I have about 35k (approx 1150 plots) cubits and about 1650 plots of which I’ve used 1400 plots.

I have 2 reasonably sized bases which only take up about half the used plots, and to be honest I could probably free up 4/500 without it affecting my game.

So let’s say I can comfortably play with about 1000 plots.

That’s 8 square kilometres in game.

I know there will be some with elaborate builds that need some more, and those building very tall structures also need more.

These will make up a small percentage of the game players, and to be honest if you want to build a 10x10 plot building that is 25 plots high, you should have to work hard to earn all those plots!

Wandering round a few worlds I have come across quite a few large areas just plotted off with no builds or activity there.

This is what concerns me as to why some people want large amount of cheap plots, just to section off a huge area for themselves, I don’t have anything against the practice, I just don’t think there should be an easy route to it.

Last thing I would ask is to ease up on the devs a bit, when the rock xp removal was announced, there was so many people saying ‘it sucks, but if you make it an instacraft I’ll be OK with it’. And just hours later, they announced that it would happen!

That shows they do take in suggestions and act on them if it’s viable.

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Some builds are just so large they need that many, some people have several guilds and bases. Me - I need to plot huge lakes and water in order to preserve them from others building ugly bridges or square boxes there. I got 2.5k plots and well over half is just plotting the environment from grief.

Also, this wouldn’t be a problem if we had private worlds, since you would only need the plots the build actually requires.

I truly hope they reconsider this change for now, at least not adding it in this patch with such short notice/better solution. They poll many things, why wouldn’t they poll this one first, since clearly the community is very divided, many claining they may quit because they simply cannot fulfill their dreams in this game when all viable ways of doing it gets nerfed. Poll it and let the playerbase decide.

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cuz it was really the only way to get xp without spending hours apon hours grinding away at 2 xp here and there tasks its not so bad for the high level players cuz a AOE hammer speed brew and xp loaf can solve that but low level and new players are going to see that and possibility nope out

true i kind of wanted to avoid saying this on the testing thread but my self i kind of saw this has a exploit but at the same time if i was the devs haveing the tools they got i would have taken a step back and asked “ok why are people doing this exploit” if its for pure gain then sure patch it and done but if like a lot of people are saying they feel out of necessity then i would have kept it till a fix for the underlining case could be released

thats a good point its why i have kind of stop my self form saying anything on the testing thread but at the same time i can see where the hate is comeing form sure stone is now a insta craft but thats like putting a band-aid on a wound that needs stitches its not really helping much to aleve the orgin of the hate which is players feeling

A. that the grind wall was just massively buffed

B. that this was done in a attempt to get more cubits bought rather then farmed.

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This relates directly to my later comment:

And do you think there should be an easy way to gain that many plots?

If you want to block off a 10 square kilometre area just so someone doesn’t build something you think is ugly on it, that’s fine, I’m not saying you shouldn’t do it, but no-one shouldn just be handed the plots to do it.

It’s a public space, everyone has as much right to build there’s as you do!

Please don’t take this the wrong way, I’m not having a go or anything, just hoping to present a different perspective.

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There’s a difference between hate and constructive criticism in my opinion.

I think the main issue is it’s more than just the 2XP nerf that’s the issue. It’s hitting an underlying problem with the leveling system. It arguably affects the lower level players more than it does the people who have the equipment to be able to grind the stones in the first place. It’s the newbies that get hit rather than the vets.

If you put your hand in the cookie jar and I take away the jar, are you not going to eat cookies anymore or are you just going to try and find where that cookie jar is hiding? Does a slap on the wrist saying “stop that” actually stop something? Furthermore, should everyone else you know not be allowed to eat those cookies just because your hand was caught in it?

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It is not so much to section out a area for myself, since all I want to is to preserve the natural beauty there. Has nothing to do with wanting that area, at all. I just don’t want others to have it either. Anyone who knows or have read my comments, I am an avid supporter of private worlds for this very reason.

And I do think there should be an “easy” way, but removing masscraft is just an inconvenience rather than solution. If you use t6 aoe hammer, with teaching pie and mega fast brews, you can easily get 600 to 800k exp per pie (like 45 minutes). All they are doing by removing this way is take away a reliable way of getting exp for people who don’t wanna or like mining. Filling masscraft tables still take a long time, takes lots of preparation etc etc, and is really in no way OP compared to just mining during that time instead.

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I know this is how lots of people think, but I do think that perspective is slightly skewed because of things like the stone xp gain. Stone xp gain was so easy that everything else looks a mega grind.

I’m not saying there there couldn’t be improvements in xp gain elsewhere, I think that is something that definitely needs looked at.

I don’t think this is unreasonable actually, that’s probably the mistake in this for me (if you want to see it as a mistake). Announcing the removal of the stone xp along side a ‘non-cheesy’ way of gaining some xp would have been the ideal.

I can agree with your other final comments, but I’m not sure I would go along with this one. Its one interpretation of course, but to me it doesn’t seem like the attitude presented so far, but I may be wrong.

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Yeah, if they remove mass craft, I could only imagine that being the last straw for a lot of people. Legitimate builders rely on mass craft way too much to be rid of it. I seriously think at that point I’d go back to modded minecraft or look for a new game. lol

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Whatever they do, I love this game. It has so much more potential than Minecraft (imo). Whatever happens, I will respect the devs decision but might not agree to it. I just hope they listen to us before they do big changes like that.

Runescape 3 was a great example of devs not listening to their playerbase. They lost nearly all their players cause of bad updates. Eventually Old School Rs was released, and the main concept of it was to listen to their players - and oh, they are thriving like never before.

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This game has so much potential in my opinion. It’s why I backed it in early access, so I hope I’m not coming across as being negative or anything. I love this game too and I have huge plans in it when a certain planet comes out from my backing plan.

I think James does a great job at open communication and can only imagine how frustrating we must be at times. Imagine having 100 or 1000 parrots on your shoulders talking in your ear about where the game should go. lol

Still, if we don’t speak up, the devs don’t know and, with the devs being open as they are, this is the feedback they need in my opinion. Whether one wants to call it hate, love, or whatever, it’s important information for the devs. If something is wrong and the devs listen and correct it, we have a much better game in the end.

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Absolutely true!

It does feel like there has been more of the former than the latter though.

There will always be people that try to game the system, it’s kinda just what we do.

I am giving the devs the benefit of the doubt here, assuming that many options were looked at and this was the least worst solution they could come up with.

There needs to be a smoother progression through the levels, it seems to me many new players see all the fancy toys the higher level players have and want them right now, and find out from forums, buddies, guild mates that there’s this quick way to level your character so you can get them too.

Again, I’m not saying there isn’t problems, I justthink there has been a bit too much hysteria over this.

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I never saw it as a negative. I found it to be more of an encouragement to play. As several had already stated, this is not PVP. It’s a sandbox you play how you like. There are no cheats and another players progress has no bearing on my game or anyone else’s. If end game players that think it makes it too easy then it’s on them not to use it and use their imagination to make it more challenging for themselves. I still fail to turely see how this is a problem, I don’t personally know of anyone siting for hours spamming buttons to grind rock. I love the game and the effort and energy the devs put into this to improve, but I think this is the one item that completely goes in the wrong direction. I have no issues with a modification, but not 0xp. Adjust the craft quantities for it, or just reduce the xp. Don’t even care about he instant craft. Most of my crafts I expect to get the next day I get to play, I don’t personally care about the instant craft… just my opinion of course.

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How are they getting the rock to fill the tables, if they are not mining?

Are they buying the rock,? I don’t think I had enough coin to buy the amount of rock required for this until I was up near level 50. Maybe I missed out there!

I can kind of see your thinking in your last post, I don’t necessarily agree, but I’m more than happy to try to look from your perspective.

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My thoughts exactly. The nerf sucks, but there are plenty of other ways to earn XP, even using everyone’s precious little stones. Getting 0XP does not make rocks useless. As long as they are an instant craft, then I am okay with it. The devs make the game and the decisions.

I just wish that if the development team actually viewed crafting rock into stones an exploit, that they would have done something about it ASAP and not this many miles down the road. Everyone got comfortable with it, found ways to abuse it and made it into what is apparently now a game breaking issue.

I’d call it more of an oversight in development than an exploit, but what do I know?

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They mine the rock and get XP, but that’s also 2XP per rock; therefore, by only mining and not crafting the stones it’s literally 50% of a newbie’s XP removed. If mass craft is taken into account, it’s over 50% of the XP removed. On top of that, gathering trees hardly helps with experience.

So the question arises: how hard of a game do we want? Do we want to create the idea that we can do big things and then have a caveat of “if you play for months or years on end”? We could literally squash every chance people have to exploit the XP but if no one can level up then do we even have a game then?

Conversely, if we make it easier to level up then we have more builders in game. More builders means more builders buying items. This leads to a better economy. This leads to more gatherers and hunters, etc. Give incentive for builders to build instead of grind… you have a bigger game.

Yet, they are doing the opposite of this through cutting off the XP. :wink:

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I guess this come down to what I was saying about intent:

Perhaps a reasonable solution, if the concern is genuinely about removing a viable levelling option for new players, is to only give xp on this process (and maybe some others) to players under level 20/30 or whatever level?

We know the devs are happy to implement this sort of thing with the free cleanses.

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I honestly think the best solution might be to raise the XP gained from everything else. Make it less of a grind in general. Then more people can just enjoy the game rather than grinding just to get to a reasonable level. There would be less incentive to look for flaws in the system. More newbies would likely stay in game, etc.

Basically, you can put whatever caps on, but if you make the game more enjoyable by raising rather than nerfing, isn’t that better in the end? It’s clearly more work, and that’s probably why a lot of dev teams hardly do it and just “lazily” nerf issues when they arise, but sometimes more work means a better game.

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Because once again the developers are increasing the time it takes to level and to have some of the things we need to enjoy the game (skill points and plots from cubits).

I will respectfully disagree. The developers provided the tools and incentive for this to happen. They provided the 3x3 AOE tools and the persisting and teaching food that made this possible. They locked skills players want to enjoy in the later stages of the skill tree. Such as atmospheric protections so we can mine gems. This is not new, this has been going on since the game a launched.

Because at the core Boundless is about building and building takes plots. And as we have all learned you have to plot everything you want and want to protect up front or you are dealing with griefers or other issues. The truly epic builds like the ones that populate all the developers videos require many many plots. Many of us bought into the game to be able to build such things and need the plots to do it.

I am working hard. I have hundreds of hours in the game since launch. .how long should it take? Thousands of hours just to get the plots I need before I can even start building?

Personally the insta-craft does nothing to solve the problem I have with the nerf. I never used the crafting table meta to level until today. I will use every bit of time I have till they roll out the nerf to level my alts and my main (My main was level 47 the two alts were only 18 and 19). I was willing to take the time it took to level but it was nice as I gathered what I needed for my storage build to get some xp for the effort to prepare the stone.

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I guess it comes down to what you view as enjoyable.

And what you came to Boundless to do.

Personally, I find it enjoyable because things a bit harder to achieve.

I find no sense of purpose if things are just handed to me.

Those plots and cubits mean more to me because I earned them (well, mostly!).

I know that’s not everyone’s take, and i suspect that is part of the issue with Boundless at the moment.

The very nature of what they are trying to do means there is no real definition of what the game is, and everyone wants it to be the type of game that they enjoy.

And you will have those that want it to be a creative mode building game, all the way through to those that want a hardcore super grind. Most will be somewhere along that spectrum.

And by trying to appease everyone, it’s ending up pleasing no-one!

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I think my previous post relates to some of what you are talking about!

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